Toronto-based Centerra Gold has temporarily suspended gold bar production at its Oksut Mine in Turkey due to the detection of mercury at facilities.

Mercury was detected in the gold room of the adsorption-desorption recovery plant.

Centerra has cleaned mercury from the affected areas and is taking additional steps to mitigate and prevent exposure.

The company is also implementing necessary safety protocols, and is now undergoing required regulatory reporting steps.

Centerra is also considering several technical solutions to remove mercury in gold recovery technologies, which include a retort and scrubbing system in the ADR plant. This would take place before production is restarted.

It is unclear how this will impact gold production guidance for 2022. Oksut Mine produced over 54,000 gold ounces as of March 17. In January, the company predicted annual gold production to be between 400,000 and 450,000 gold ounces. This was an increase from previous guidance of 380,000 ounces to 430,000 ounces.

Centerra has been developing Oksut, in south-central Turkey, since 2009. Originally an exploration joint venture between Centerra and Stratex International, Centerra has fully owned the project since January 2013.

Oksut is a heap-leach open-pit mining operation, with a stacking rate of 11,000 tonnes per day. The mine is expected to have a mine life of eight years, during which it will produce 1.2 million contained ounces of gold from two pits.

Centerra received necessary permits in January 2018, and began construction in March 2018. Oksut had its first gold pour in January 2020 and reached commercial production on May 31, 2020.

Oksut has measured resources of 17.7 million ounces at 0.5 g/t of gold for 283,000 ounces of gold, and inferred resources of 1.21 billion tonnes at 0.44 g/t of gold for 17,000 ounces of gold.